{
  "id": 12512667,
  "title": "Nobel winner Halzen says years of October 'misery' finally over",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/nobel-winner-halzen-says-years-of-october-misery-finally-over",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-07T01:00:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nobel-winner-halzen-years-october.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Nobel Prize-winning physicist Francis Halzen has expressed relief that his years of misery over not winning the prestigious award are now over. Speaking at a press conference at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Halzen, who is 82 years old, admitted to feeling miserable in October each year as the Nobel Prize neared. He expressed gratitude to his collaborators and the IceCube collaboration for their efforts in the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a project he conceived in the late 1980s. The observatory, located in Antarctica, uses a cubic kilometer of ice to detect neutrinos, which are almost massless particles that rarely interact with other matter. Halzen credited his university, the National Science Foundation, and the United States for their support, despite calls for cuts to the NSF in recent years. He emphasized that the future of the project is uncertain but optimistic, noting that past discoveries have always been transformative.",
  "summary": "Physicist Francis Halzen has an impressively long list of academic accolades—but every October, as the Nobel Prize rolled around, his failure to bag the biggest award of them all left him \"miserable,\" he admits.",
  "key_points": [
    "Nobel Prize-winning physicist Francis Halzen relieved of years of misery.",
    "IceCube Neutrino Observatory conceived in late 1980s.",
    "Halzen credits university, NSF, and US for support."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}